I am the essence of overconfidence! I am speculation, adventure; the spirit of pursuit; the stag howling for its winsome yet anonymous mate. I am the love call of evolution; the perfume and color of the flowers as they offer their pollen to the gentle buzz of the bees.
I am sex itself, gentlemen. I am life. I am appetite!

Monday, August 27, 2007

The Fake Rakhi Brother

Rakhi, quite clearly, is a north Indian festival. Much like how nobody, up north, knows what the hell Karthigai is, there is less(er) awareness of Rakhi down south. Rakhi is actually a wonderful festival, which gives a lot of opportunity to express brother-sister affection. The biggest reason for me to like Rakhi was that it successfully kept out any notions of "Sisters Day" from creeping into our lives. Not having a full-fledged Rakhi did not mean that 'sisters' in south India never collected money from their brothers. The above-mentioned Karthigai and Pongal was vasool-time for sisters. So its not as if the land of 'Pasamalar' didn't have any time for bro-sis affection. It just wasn't celebrated with an explicit function. However, Rakhi had a very different context in Madras colleges, at least during my time. This post intends to uncover that dark seedy alternate version of Rakhi that I suspect may not be uncommon at all through out India. Before I set off, a disclaimer; This irreverence towards a honestly celebrated function means no disrespect to real blood brothers and sisters, who probably truly celebrate rakhi. This, as I said, is a commentary on the alternate rakhi.

I never had a sister. So I never had anybody (except a cousin who tied it 1 year) tie Rakhi for me. Frankly, I never missed it. I didn't like Pasamalar and wasn't a big fan of bro-sis relationship either. However, I always looked forward to Rakhi every year. That was because I was extremely amused by the nonsense that passed off in my college/surroundings in the name of Rakhi. Girls tied rakhi to boys who weren't really related to them. The said boy and girl didn't even look alike. Somehow this provided my cynical mind much mirth. Because the reasons for them becoming a fake rakhi sibling was always terribly funny. I was never a big fan of 'he is like my brother' or 'she is like my sister'. To me if you didn't have a sister, and I didnt have one, that was it. No point in trying to replace it with a robot, imaginary dream sister, cat, dog or some girl who turned you down.

Usually, though to be fair, not always, when the concerned man woman weren't related at all, the rakhi brother-sister relationship was an ikky one. Very shady to be precise. One of those vazha-vazha kozha-kozha things that made you wanna throw up. If somebody were working on the world's biggest loser thesis, they needn't go further than the fake Rakhi-brother. Such a relation usually meant the following things to me (a) the guy was interested in the ugly-rakhi-sister's friend so wilfully agreed to be part of this circus (b) the guy proposed to the girl, was turned down and the girl tied a rakhi on his hand to shut him out forever. The latter was most common. Infact a week before rakhi, the college would start gossiping if a particular girl would tie rakhi to her stalker or not. Some guys even went to the extent of bunking college just to escape the Rakhi love-gulliotine. Love is already a hard thing on the adolescent guy. The worst thing he wants to happen is have his chic end up as his rakhi sister. Typically a 'love' intent had several end states. It could be (a) he loves -> he proposes -> she accepts (b) he loves -> he proposes -> she rejects (c) he loves -> he proposes -> she rejects -> she suddenly accepts later (d) he loves -> he proposes -> he unfortunately become rakhi brother; and finally (e) he loves -> he proposes -> he-becomes-rakhi-brother -> -he-miraculously-becomes-lover-again -> she-accepts. Of the five possibilities option (d) is the worst because (e) is a non-zero possibility lingering like a carrot but very hard to achieve. Its hard to over-turn a rakhi-brother situation. At that time the girl definitely has an upper hand.

From a girl's point of view, it wasn't as if rakhi was an iron clad protector against the romeo. The guy is typically embarrassed, caught in an awkward situation. His friends are giving out sympathetic smiles and he isn't sure if he detected sarcasm in those smiles or not. He is pretty sure, his own rakhi-sister is secretly laughing her ass off, when she is with her friends telling them how she gave the proverbial nose-cut. Its not an enviable situation, to be honest. The loser who was unfortunate enough to get slapped with a Rakhi isn't going to just roll over and die. He hangs on because being a Rakhi brother is better than being an ex-communicated friend. I have actually seen loser-fake-rakhi brother trying to cool things off during this phase. They get to be this protective brother, pass advise to their loving sister on how they should be wary of these bad evil romeos. Sometimes the guy gets to play Mr. Bodyguard. He talks fondly and fake-affectionately about his rakhi sister, to his friends. He probably doesn't realize that his audience is secretly collecting information only to laugh (really loudly) behind his back. He does all this in the hope that she might, just might, revoke the rakhi sentence imposed on him. And it is true that some men have been successfull in overturning the most difficult love challenge of all. So there is hope for the loser after all.

I hope the youngters of today, the nasty rebel rascals, are continuing to uphold the glorious tradition of yesteryears.

17 comments:

Anonymous
said...

How about the fake brother sister relationship that starts when girl starts college. The girl is in 1st year & the boy 1 year senior and 1st encounter is a ragging session. The next time they become anna thangachi! Epdi dhaan mudiyardho...Vee

very funny and yeah - I was pretty much irked by some arbit girl coming and asking me if she could tie a rakhi for me - I care two hoots if she ties one or not - but felt funny when some XYZ suddenly becomes your 'sister'! Anyways, this purile behaviour wore off around 9th standard kinds....

Rakhi used to work the other way around. I remember the boys in my class used to collect Rakhis like gemstones. The more you collect, the more you have escaped from "jakku parties" in the class/school. Guess back in 8th/9th std, we had pretty high standards. Antha pavam thaan, I ended up going to all boys schools, colleges and universities after that. Penn pavan pollathathu. Andava!!!

There is a rakhi brother-sister pair in my office. This girl is elder to this boy. She is a team lead and he is an entry level software engineer. I guess their rakhi arrangement is so that that they can flirt around freely and profess sisterly or brotherly love.

I have done this too...when I was in school, I tied rakhi to all the guys in my class...bcos they were teasing me with some guy. Didnt want to separately do it to that guy, so tied to everyone. But then the problem was, they would tease with the guy who had refused to get the rakhi tied :P It all seems so silly now! No wonder I relate to your blogs so much :D

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Hawkeye somehow managed to get educated, switch careers from engineering to business and secure gainful employment. He got employed because he failed to achieve his ultimate goal of becoming a house husband. He does not believe in luck but thinks he is the most unluckiest man in the world (read disclaimer). Such self-contradictory thoughts continue to separate the author from reality. He claims he can 'do humor' because he cant be taken seriously.Hawkeye is a nomad, a wanderer who has studied in more schools and lived in more places than he cares to remember. He has travelled to many many states within India and has seen almost all the important vacation spots. He constantly tries to bring in "I went to switzerland for my honeymoon" in unrelated conversations (like this one) and hopes to visit all the other countries in Europe. Loves to visit and learn historical information about Indian Temples. He is ramping up on the ancient metaphysical philosphy called Vishishta-Advaitha ( Qualified Non-Dualism) and loves to talk about it with anybody who claims to be an expert.